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Table of Contents
Title
Color PsychologyBroad Question
How does color affect intellectual performance?Specific Question
Will different colored workspaces boost productivity while doing a word search?Hypothesis
It is hypothesized that if a work space is the color blue it will boost productivity, and if a workspace is yellow it will suppress productivity.Rationale: In research it was read that if your workspace is the color blue it will boost your productivity, and if it is yellow it will distract you and therefore making you less productive. The color blue is reliable and responsible. This color exhibits confidence, and you can rely on it to take control and do the right things in difficult situations. According to empower-yourself-with-color-psychology.com. Yellow on the other hand can cause anxiety. Yellow is fast moving and can lead to nervousness and emotional instability. Yellow is also a very distracting color, and can catch your eye when you are working.
Graph of Hypothesis
Variables
Independent Variable:
The color of the cubicle that is surrounding a person.Dependent Variable:
How long it will take someone to complete a word search.Variables That Need To Be Controlled: The difficulty of the word searches. The way that instructions were given. The timing method. The setting was the same for each trial. What blue paper was used. What yellow paper was used. Which word search was used. Which color work space each person was in. Which room the experiment was done in. There was about the same amount of daylight.
Vocabulary List That Needs Explanation
psychology-the science of the mind or of mental states and processes.General Plan
This experiment will commence in Mrs. Coffey's room on her red table. In this experiment there will be eight 7th graders. This experiment will be testing to see if color can affect intellectual performance. This will be tested by having each subject do a wordsearch in two colored worPotential Problems And Solutions
Not enough time for all the trials. The solution was cutting down the amount of trials.Safety Or Environmental Concerns
NoneExperimental Design
During this experiment, the time that it takes each subject to finish a wordsearch will be measured. The experiment will be run in Mrs. Coffey’s room on her red table. The subject will sit on the cushioned bench beside the table. There will be paper hung from the ceiling so that the subject doing the word searches will only see the colored paper hanging from the ceiling. There will be two pieces of blue and yellow paper that are 52in. and one piece of yellow and blue paper that is 67in.. The yellow paper and blue paper will be hung around the table on three sides. The blue paper will be behind the yellow paper. If one color is not being used it would be rolled up and it would be clipped to the ceiling tiles. The word searches will be printed off of http://puzzlemaker.discoveryeducation.com/WordSearchSetupForm.asp . Eight word searches will be printed of one kind and eight of another that are about the same amount of difficulty, both word searches will be ten by ten words.Resources and Budget Table
Detailed Procedure
Step 1. Get yellow paper (2 pieces 52in. long and one piece 67in. long, from the teacher’s room), and blue paper of the same measurements. Get a stopwatch, two different word searches that you make on http://puzzlemaker.discoveryeducation.com/WordSearchSetupForm.asp , with fairly difficult, but everday words, make each word search the same amount of words. Make 8 copies of one word search and 8 copies of another word search. Name them both word search and memorize which word search is #1 and which one is word search #2.
Step 2. Recruit 8 people in the 7th grade.
Step 3. Build testing booth (Tape or attach yellow paper from ceiling so that it rests on the table on three sides in Ms. Coffey’s room on her little red table, and put a layer of paper on the bottom of the table, so that person doing word search can not see anything but yellow paper when they look up). Next thumbtack blue paper of the same measurements as the yellow paper to the ceiling 1cm from where the yellow paper will be taped in the same places but keep the blue rolled up like a shade until it is needed.
Step 4. Have a seventh grader sit on the bench in Ms. Coffey’s room, where they will be surrounded by the yellow or blue paper.
Step 5. Give the 7th grader a pencil and a wordsearch that they start when they receive.
Step 6. SCRIPT: say, “Start this word search when you receive it, please do not talk. Say “I’m done” when you finish.”
(Have the 7th graders do the wordsearches in this manner:
Day 1 Day 2
Person 1 Y1 B2
Person 2 Y2 B1
Person 3 B1 Y2
Person 4 B2 Y1
Person 5 Y1 B2
Person 6 Y2 B1
Person 7 B1 Y2
Person 8 B2 Y1
KEY: B: Blue Workspace Y: Yellow Workspace 1: WS #1 2: WS #2
No one will have the same WS two days in a row.
Step 7. When the 7th grader begins the word search start timing them.
Step 8. When the 7th grader finishes stop the stopwatch and record their time.
Step 9. Compare times to see if the color of a workspace will boost productivity.
After the first 7th grader is done, repeat all of the steps until all eight students have done a word search in the yellow workspace and a word search in the blue workspace.
Data Table
Data Analysis
Graphs
Photos
Results
The average completion time in the blue workspace was 529 seconds and in the yellow it was 643 seconds. The blue workspace had faster times. The yellow workspace had slower times. My data shows that 6 out of 8 people had better word search completion times in the blue workspace than in the yellow.Conclusion
This experiment was designed see if certain colors can boost or suppress productivity. The results show that the blue workspace boosted productivity and the yellow workspace suppressed productivity. The average completion time in the blue workspace was 529 seconds and the average in the yellow was 643 seconds.Discussion
The experiment question was will different colored workspaces boost productivity while doing a word search? The experiment did answer the experiment question. The answer was that a blue workspace will boost productivity while doing a wordsearch and a yellow workspace will suppress productivity. It was hypothesized that if a workspace is the color blue it will boost productivity, and if a workspace is yellow it will suppress productivity. The hypothesis was supported by the data that was collected. The average word search completion time in the blue workspace was 529 seconds and the average in the yellow workspace was 643 seconds. It was observed that some people were aggravated and/or annoyed in the yellow workspace and some people were calmed in the blue workspace. A trend that was seen in the blue workspace was that most people didn’t fidget as much because they were calm. People in the yellow workspaces were moving around more and making noises like sighs. There was an 18% difference between the yellow workspace completion time and the blue completion time. That is a significant difference. In trial 1 when that student did the word search in the yellow workspace their time was an outlier. They did better in the yellow than in the blue which goes against the overall average results. The student that did trial 2 had pretty much the same times in each workspace, it didn’t seem to make a difference what workspace they were in. Two out of the eight people in the experiment did better in the yellow workspace than in the blue. 75% of students in the experiment corresponded with the hypothesis. There was a strong cause and effect shown between the independent variable conditions and the dependent variable. Only two people had a better word search completion time in the yellow workspace than in the blue. The results happened this way because of psychology. Some colors calm the brain and some colors don’t. Some colors make people hungry some colors make people sleepy. It’s just the way minds work. It has been shown in other experiments that blue surroundings make people calm and yellow make people aggravated and uncomfortable.
Some potential problems were prevented by the design of the experiment. The design of the experiment space made it easy to alternate between the blue and yellow workspaces. All of the word searches were well organized and easy to get to. Some problems that arose during the experiment were workspace colored paper ripping and kids talking while other kids were doing the experiment. The experiment design changed because there wasn’t enough time to do the originally planned 16 trials. Starting the trial earlier may have helped. Designing the workspace to be even easier to switch could have helped. The word searches were ones that were designed on a website. The words that were chosen were random, but around the same difficulty. There could have been a problem with people getting different word searches. If all the people in the yellow workspace got word search 1 and all of the people in blue got word search 2 it wouldn’t be fair because one word search might be harder. What was done was the word searches were alternated who got what word search. Person A could get word search 1 in workspace blue, and they could get word search 2 in yellow. Person B could get the opposite of that and some people could have yellow workspace first with word search 1. This evened out any possible difficulty differences in the word searches.This experiment could make people calmer, more productive and even happier. This experiment could help someone trying to pick a color for a bedroom or office. Blue would be a great color for an office because it boosts productivity. It would be a great color for a bedroom because it calms people down. This experiment could lead to helping people live a more productive and calm life. Future experiments could be could be based on what colors make you hungrier, or more tired and more energetic. There are so many possibilities in the world of color psychology.Background Research
In the research it was found that blue calmed people down and people have been much more productive. I also found that blue is one of the least appetizing colors which can make people stay on task better. Yellow is cheery and warm and can easily throw anyone off task. Yellow is the "most fatiguing to the eye," said http://psychology.about.com/od/sensationandperception/a/color_yellow.htm. Yellow can also create feelings of frustration and anger that can make you judge yourself and others.References
"Color Psychology - Blue." About.com Psychology. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Mar. 2013.
<http://psychology.about.com/od/sensationandperception/a/color_blue.htm>.
"Color Psychology - Yellow." About.com Psychology. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Mar. 2013.
<http://psychology.about.com/od/sensationandperception/a/color_yellow.htm>.
"Color Psychology to Empower and Inspire You." Color Psychology Will Empower Your
Life. N.p., 2009. Web. 21 Mar. 2013.
<http://empower-yourself-with-color-psychology.com/>.
Mccann, T.A. "Is Your Workplace Making You Less Productive?" Gist. N.p., 16 Feb. 2012.
Web.
<http://blog.gist.com/2012/02/16/is-your-workplace-making-you-less-productive/>.
"Psychology." Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com, n.d. Web. 21 Mar. 2013.
<http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/psychology?s=t>.
Abstract
The purpose of this experiment was to see if color had an affect on intellectual performance. It was hypothesized that if a workspace is the color blue it will boost productivity, and if a workspace is yellow it will suppress productivity. Using randomized testing conditions subjects did a wordsearch in each of the two colors. The data that was collected corresponded with the hypothesis. The average wordsearch completion time in the blue workspace was 529 seconds and in the yellow it was 643 seconds. It was found in this experiment that color does affect intellectual performance.